tsss, no revival?(care to put in something yourself, Custos? i suppose there's a reason for reviving this thread?)

Absolute Classic! albums i know:"Fire of Love" - Enough praise already"the Las Vegas Story" - Wonder why nobody's mentioned it. Powerful manic big city swampblues songs wonderfully sung. Everybody should hear this one."Mother Juno" - 1987 comeback album. Less manic, more introspection & melody (Yellow Eyes, Port of Souls, great slow songs), Jeffrey "you look like an Elvis from hell" Lee Lewis's voice has aqcuired more depth & variation and would only get better on subsequent records."Pastoral Hide & Seek" The Gun Club at its most accessible & compelling? "Emily's Changed", "I hear your heart singing", "Flowing" ah, too many to mention. (Great singalong album when cycling to university it was.)"Lucky Jim" the contemplative album, songs written in Vietnam & Cambodia, recorded in the Netherlands (yay!:). Very strong cuts, (and I suppose) the last he would compose since he died in '96.

Willem, Custos just hits "random" and revives threads for no reason. I must admit that I was glad to see one of my favorite bands hit the Custos-revival circuit, though I do find his habit tiresome at time. Classic anyhow obviously.

Willem, Custos just hits "random" and revives threads for no reason.No, J0hn. My choices for revivals are very intentional. I choose old threads that either...a) Have some oh-so-faint connection to a current thread thats getting a lot of debate. or......b) Which interest me personally.In this case, both were true. Because a) because I wanted to get a reaction about Jeffrey Lee Pierce (since I had brought him up when talking about Ian Astbury in one of the recent Doors threads.) and b)I also suspect that I'd like the Gun Club, but I've never heard them before...and would like to hear what the Nu-ILM crowd has to say about them.

I need to hear more of the early stuff, but the In Exile era is pretty dud. Just makes me want to hear either the Cocteau Twins or some X, not some weird ass mixture of the two. Though I kinda like the song "Pastoral, Hide & Seek."

At least from the couple of albums I have (Fire of Love & Mother Juno), I'd say neither classic or dud.

Fire of Love is real good. It is similar to X lyrically (damnation punk blues) and somewhat musically (of course no Exene), but much darker in tone. "Sex Beat" is a great song. Oh yeah, Jane's Addiction ripped off the back cover.

Mother Juno is a weird one. The sound is total reverbed out and it takes a bit away from the songs and it doesn't help that Pierce's voice sounds real thin. "Bill Bailey" and "The Breaking Hands" are both really good songs. It is much more subdued than "The Fire of Love"

Pierce was a good songwriter with a shady voice.

I've had both of these albums for years and give them a listen now and then but haven't yet got the bite to get another Gun Club record.

I love that they were so improbable, and yet it all worked. Jeffrey Lee was like a baby Meat Loaf, all chubby and melodramatic and feral. But the enthusiasm you could feel pouring from the grooves in the vinyl. He had this Beat poet thing and this reggae (filtered through L. A. punk and Blondie) thing and like someone said, his voice whooped and soared all over the notes (actually, consistently sharp... or was it flat). I haven't heard a lot of their later stuff, but Fire of Love is absolute Classic.

I found Wildweed on LP 2 months ago and it is indeed somewhat patchy, but great nonetheless. I found out about a month later that inside the LP-cover there was a 7" containing the extra stuff that would later be added on the CD re-issue! Great stuff, Jeff sounding very drunk on "the Fertility Goddess" (thus pronounced "the Fertililidy Goddss").

I forgot one essential release upthread, maybe strictly for Gun Club devotees only, but it offers a nice insight into the influences of JLP. It's a double CD "Early Warning" containing demos, outtakes & live-material on one disc and a haunting disc 2 containing home-recordings of JLP at his most delta-bluesy (e.g. "the Devil and the Nigger", about you-probably-know-who)

Fire of Love is the must-have, and then if your love for it starts to get irrational, investigate the rest.Hahahahahaha.Weird Side Fact: I saw a pic of Jeffrey Lee hanging off the arm of a hot goth babe (I'm not sure if it was Patricia Morrison or not, she looked vaguely Japanese) and was shocked to see how much JLP looked like Bill Hicks. Weirder still, every other pic of Jeffrey Lee i've seen is either blurry, taken from very far away or has JLP's metalhead hair covering most of his face.

Stefan, as far as I can tell there's no book, unfortunately. Short historical overviews as well as (links to) articles can be found here and here. The latter site does mention a book by JLP himself though, containing stories and lyrics.

PLUG! As a member of Kid Congo's current band I invite all innerested NYC area ILMers to email me so I can let you know when we're playing next. We might go to Europe for a couple of weeks later in the year, too (Kid's got a solo record coming out).

In Exile definitely sounds better to me now then I felt it did back when I made my original post. I still need to buy Fire Of Love and the song about fucking you till you die, burying you and kissing this town goodbye.

Jack On Fire(typed in by Ger Potze, taken from "Go Tell The Mountain") I am like Jack, I am from southern landI'm holding your happiness in my handthe sun behind me is a sexual redand all your bounty-hunting ghosts are dead

I am like Jack and I tell you thisI will be your lover and exorcistIn the stillness of the mosquito sunsetyou will make love to me to your very best

Hey, hey, I'm a Jack On Firehey, hey, your lips kiss Jack on Fire

Way back in the Indian daysnothing could drive the heat awaydrive the search and murder of lost enemiesdrive deep into what is never seen

And like Jack, there is a heat to the fightlike a moth detects a heat to the lightand like Jack, I will covet everything that is youbecause, the heat in you will temporarily do

Hey, hey, I'm a Jack On Firehey, hey, your lips kiss Jack on Fire

(noise)

When you fall in love with mewe can dig a hole by the willow treethen, I will fuck you until you diebury you and kiss this town goodbye,

it will be unhappy, it will be sadbut, it will be understood that I am BAD!so don't you go and lie to me'cause everyday is judgement day with me

I just followed up a comment on another list about a rerelease of the Gun Club's Miami + Las Vegas on Sympathy for The Record Industry by writing and asking about it and got this response pretty rapidly (1/2 hour?)

'they'll be out in october on cd/lp then put together eventually in anice box set with booklet and lots of extra stuff... '

For all of the usual idiotic reasons including having the audacity of being vastly ahead of their time, one of the most legendary and increasingly influential Los Angeles bands of the last 2 1/2 decades has characteristically never received the respect and success they so richly deserve. Although always revered in the U.K. and in Europe, The Gun Club virtually escaped any notoriety in the U.S., where adulation is based on record sales rather than artistry and talent. However an abundance of Gun Club bootlegs are currently making the rounds and their original records demand exorbitant collectors' prices. Has the time really come to recognize the immense contribution of The Gun Club?

The Gun Club were irreverent upstarts and genuine innovators. They were among the first to incorporate the punk ethic and flaunt that attitude. They injected it into a resurrection of the dark spirit of Blues and Roots music and thereby created a unique new hybrid genre.

For leader/guiding light Jeffrey Lee Pierce, The Gun Club was an intense and cathartic medium to broadcast and exorcise his personal demons with a repertoire concerned mainly with themes of sex, vengeance and a preoccupation with death. On stage he was known for his substance abuse and unpredictable behavior. Unfortunately his talent and vision was silenced forever in 1996 when he died of a brain hemorrhage.

Working directly with the family of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Animal Records owner Chris Stein, Sympathy For The Record Industry is excited and honored to be re-releasing 3 long out of printGUN CLUB records.sftri 740THE GUN CLUB "MIAMI"cd/lp - OUT IN OCTOBER

Following their ground-breaking debut, "Fire of Love", MIAMI was released in 1982 and has been out of print for more than 10 years. Produced by Blondie's Chris Stein, it has a cleaner sound than its predecessor, yet manages to retain a similar urgency and overall intensity as well as Pierce's ominous trademark howl. Debbie Harry sings back-up on various tracks under the pseudonym D.H.Lawrence.

TRACKSCarry Home, Calling Up Thunder, Brother and Sister, Run Through the Jungle, Devil in the Woods, Texas Serenade, Watermelon Man, Bad Indian, John Hardy, Fire of Love, Sleeping in Blood City, Mother of Earthsftri 741THE GUN CLUB "DEATH PARTY"cd ep/12" - OUT IN OCTOBER

After a lineup shake-up, DEATH PARTY (1983) is the only recording by this version of The Gun Club.

In addition to Jeffrey on guitar and vocals there is Dee Pop (Bush Tetras) on drums, Jim Duckworth (Panther Burns) and Jimmy Uiana on bass. This is a strange record. "Death Party" (the track) was co-written by San Francisco band Flipper and Pierce, and according to Duckworth "it was based on a moronic rock riff that made us all laugh." The standout track among the apocalyptic preaching is the haunting and beautiful "The House on Highland Avenue. "

TRACKSThe House on Highland Avenue, The Lie, Light of the World, Death Party, Come Back Jimsftri 742THE GUN CLUB "LAS VEGAS STORY"cd/lp - OUT IN OCTOBER

Although Jeffrey would reform and reignite The Gun Club up until his death, this release from 1984 marked the end of the original era. Kid Congo Powers was back on guitar after serving time with The Cramps and Rob Ritter who left to join 45 Grave was replaced by Patricia Morrison on bass. Including peculiar choices for covers by Pharoah Sanders and Gershwin, LAS VEGAS STORY begins with a Bo Diddley drum beat and continues through a pastiche of styles and storylines that encapsulate the warped ideals of middle America.

Utterly great! When I was kid Gun Club, together with Wall of Voodoo and Thin White Rope, were my psychopomps to the exploration of a highly mythologized Californian pit of the damned. See the damages of american culture around the world. :)

Related news: we've (Kid Congo & band) just recorded basic tracks for our first album and will hopefully find someone to release it within the year. It sounds like a big glowing ball of RoxyMorriconeContortionsSexGlitch.

CLASSIC for Fire Of Love, even if they never recorded another note. How Fun House might've sounded if the Stooges specialized in Delta blues & rockabilly. Miami was OK but kinda redundant. Can't remember what Las Vegas Story was like - which is not to say it's necessarily unmemorable.

I only have the first two -- but they're completely fucking classic. I'm not sure which one I like more -- Fire of Love has better sound (although I'm used to the production of Miami now) but I think Miami just might have better songs. I didn't get to acquire The Las Vegas Story and Death Party though when I came back to Vinyl Fever for them several months back they haven't restocked the reissues since.

She's like heroin to me, she cannot miss the vein... Wow. Fuck "Miami", it's indeed all about "Fire of Love"... Oddly the GC is currently being revived here in Montreal by an up and coming band which regularly plays covers of their songs during their live sets. The Club's really another one of these obscure bands from which spring various cult figures... the Kid, Patti Morrison... It's a bit like Crime & the City Solution, confidentially yours...

My typo above--Kid Congo was seeing the "Fabulous Stains" movie. I am also trying to remember if I ever saw the Gun Club. I know I missed them opening for the Cramps at the Bayou in Georgetown (DC) because I was studying for a final. Hmmmm, I wonder if they ever came back to town.

want to give some special extra shine since nobody seems to really talk much about it, but damn, the las vegas story is something else. totally engrossing, lynchian subversive america shit. i'll take that record over ANY psychobilly album ever recorded including the whole of the cramps catalogue

Google tells me that Munoz is an NYU professor who listened to the Gun Club, Germs and other LA bands when he was younger, and he writes about that in his book Cruising utopia: the then and there of queer futurity . I still do not know what the "calling up thunder" phrase refers to.

Rob Ritter departed, to reappear in 45 Grave. Patricia Morrison brought in as his replacement. She stayed in the band until they split at the end of '84, but wasn't in New York when Tex & The Horseheads recording session ran short and Death Party was recorded. Jim Uliana was, so is on that but wasn't in the band.

Not sure if the video is the same gig as the recording on the 2 discs pictured above. Love the garage rock take on A Love Supreme on them. The lp of that title is 1/2 of what's on that Death Party disc. The other half was released as Sex Beat '81.The 2 lps were released when Terry Graham and Ward Dotson sold the tapes to a European record label cos they were making no money from being in the band.

The video is from around the time Miami was released but Rob Ritter was already gone by the time that came out hence his face not being on the cover and his weird sleeve billing. I think that record has one of my favourite covers ever which I find almost synaesthetic to the record inside. not sure too many would. But I find a record that was recorded in a cramped NYC studio fills my head with visions of wide open plains as well as swamp fronds. Love the psychedelic touches, the swirls of pedal steel guitar etc. One of my all-time favourite records.

No no sign of Tery Graham's book and he's said that he couldn't get it printed for the money raised or something to that effect, not apologised to anybody who sent him money through Kickstarter and no sign of the book.

There have been a load of bootlegs of the band in various incarnations upped to various places over the years. & Hellione's dvds of their tv appearances etc have been good watching. I think the official dvds are also still in print. THe 2 from manchester & the from Spain at least.

JLP put out a book called Go Tell The Mountain which conssisted of reminiscences and a load of lyrics, think it was through Rollins's imprint. I should have it around somewhere but need to be more organised.

& I think most of the lps are in print on cd. Plus some other unreleased at the time stuff. Oh & there have been 2 reasonably successful tribute sets covering various songs he wrote.